


Someone Cut the Phone Cord

by WinchesterWarrenSon



Series: Battle Scars Series [3]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Developmentally Disabled Son Goku, Disabled Character, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:46:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3390563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinchesterWarrenSon/pseuds/WinchesterWarrenSon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connected to Battle Scars and Hard Battle. Yamcha wonders why Chichi hasn't called at all after all this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Cut the Phone Cord

**Author's Note:**

> Deception.... Disgrace.... For shame...!

Yamcha had hoped he had just been paranoid. But as he examined their one home phone, he saw that he had been right to question it.

Goku, Puar, and Oolong all slept as Yamcha used a flashlight to examine the cords and rest of the invention, and he found the problem fast enough.

Turns out it probably wasn’t just Chichi’s calls they hadn’t been getting. It was probably every call that tried to reach the home phone. Seeing that the cord had been cut.

Yamcha reached out and touched the cord and brought it closer to his face. It was a little frayed, but Yamcha couldn’t exactly tell if someone had cut it or eaten through it.

Either way, someone had tampered with the phone…. But why?

Yamcha looked over at the sleeping forms of his friends, frowning.

He didn’t want to think it was any of them, but … who else could it be? It certainly hadn’t been Yamcha himself. And he really doubted it was Oolong. Oolong definitely had no motive, unless there was something Yamcha had no idea about and that was entirely separate from Goku’s marital trouble….

But both Goku and Puar would have reasons to do it, though he really, really didn’t think either of them had that kind of … selfish stuff in them. Goku did things without thinking, but he wasn’t deceitful or cruel and he had really seemed to want to hear Chichi’s voice on the other line. In the beginning at least….. Now it was almost as though he forgot why he was still living with Yamcha and had no real plans of leaving. Not that Yamcha minded, but Yamcha knew this was temporary. Either Chichi would have him go home or he’d get bored….

Puar could be mean when she wanted to, and he knew she liked having Goku around because it was easier for Yamcha to cheer up with Goku around…. But there was no way she would’ve prevented Chichi from calling to patch things up with Goku.

If Chichi had been calling and thought Goku was ignoring her … . Yamcha felt his own chest thrum with the pain that she must’ve felt, thinking that her husband was rejecting her.

He felt guilty for liking Goku being here with him - them - so much. He belonged at home - Goku’s home - with Chichi and Gohan and Goten. College-bound Gohan and eight-year-old Goten…. Not with broken, pathetic Yamcha. Yamcha who held Goku back when they trained together because Yamcha’s leg just didn’t want to work right some days and he was significantly weaker than him and no match for Goku like Vegeta was. Yamcha who sometimes just couldn’t get out of bed, wasting so much time that Goku could’ve used to do something else, and Yamcha rationally knew it had been Goku’s decision to lay there with him until he felt better, but….

Goku belonged with his family. That was all there was to it.

Yamcha used his cell phone to text Bulma. He had an idea.

Bulma either had already been awake or had been woken up by the text, because she texted him back pretty quickly. They made arrangements, and Yamcha promised to have Goku at Bulma’s place Saturday afternoon.

The days passed, and soon Saturday was upon them, and Goku was rather excited to see Bulma and Vegeta again. Yamcha felt a little guilty that Goku hadn’t been this excited in a while; he couldn’t stop grinning about the chance to spar with Vegeta again.

They arrived in due time, another car already in the driveway alongside Bulma’s enviously beautiful vehicle. Goku’s eyes widened as he recognized it.

"Videl’s here too? Hey, that must mean Gohan, too!" Goku declared, hopping out of the vehicle before Yamcha had brought it to a complete stop.

"Hey, careful!" Yamcha called after him, but the indestructible Saiyan wasn’t listening. Yamcha sighed, then parked the car and walked after him, Oolong and Puar following behind.

Goku hurried ahead of them, and Yamcha tried to keep up, but he winced as his bad leg radiated pain as he somehow took a step wrong. So it was harder than he had initially anticipated. Stupid leg pain, coming and going as it pleased….

"Chichi!" Yamcha heard Goku exclaim, and he wished he was already in the room before that, but oh well.

When Yamcha finally got there, Goku looked very confused as to why Chichi was crossing her arms and refusing to look at him and why Gohan didn’t look at all happy to see him.

Bulma was sitting to the side, arms crossed and watching with a neutral expression. She spotted Yamcha and raised an eyebrow at him, her way of asking what exactly was going on and why was it happening in her living room. Videl was sitting beside Gohan, looking like she wasn’t entirely sure what was going on but was more than ready to be emotional support.

"You’re still mad?" Goku asked.

"Of course I am!" Chichi scolded, still not looking at him. "You give Bulma a number for me to call when I was ready to talk to you again, then that number turns out to be a dud! You didn’t want to talk to me at all! You just wanted an excuse to stay gone!"

"Huh?" Goku furrowed his eyebrows, clearly confused. But Chichi wasn’t buying it, and Gohan was looking increasingly disappointed in Goku.

"Sure you dialed it properly? Must be hard reading numbers with old lady eyes," Puar said rather nastily.

"Look who’s talking," Oolong muttered under his breath.

Puar’s jab at her did nothing to improve Chichi’s mood. “You stay out of it!”

"What do you mean the number was a dud?" Goku asked.

"It kept saying the phone was out of order whenever I dialed! You did it on purpose!"

"Out of order?"

"I, uh, I actually have an explanation for that," Yamcha spoke up after taking a deep breath and sucking up the pain still radiating up his leg.

Chichi, Goku, Gohan, Videl, and Bulma all stared at him, and Oolong and Puar craned their heads to better look at Yamcha.

"The number Goku gave you was my home number. And ordinarily, it works, but … ."

"But?" Gohan prodded, tone cautious.

"… but last night I discovered the cord was cut. I have no idea how long it’s been like that."

"Cord was cut? Is that bad?" Goku asked.

"It means the phone hasn’t been ringing because it was no longer connected to the phone lines and couldn’t get re-hooked. No body could’ve called the home line."

"But who’d have cut the phone cord!?" Oolong asked, starting to freak out. "Is there a serial killer hiding in our walls or something!?"

Yamcha snorted. “I doubt it.”

Yamcha looked pointedly at Puar, and Puar started to look nervous. She eventually broke eye contact with Yamcha entirely. Goku missed the significance of that interaction and just looked at Yamcha confused.

"So Chichi’s mad because of a phone cord?"

"You expect me to believe that phone cord story?" Chichi asked, crossing her arms but actually looking at Yamcha and Goku now.

"… Wouldn’t that mean one of you cut the cord?" Gohan asked, frowning deeply.

"Can’t be Yamcha," Bulma said. "He texted me to tell me about it early in the morning a few days ago. Got this meeting arranged."

"And Goku didn’t know what a phone cord did and Oolong has no motive," Yamcha continued.

"That leaves - " Oolong started, and Goku finished with "Puar?"

Goku looked down at Puar, who was fidgeting and not looking at anyone. Goku knelt down so he and she could be at eye level.

"Puar, did you cut the phone cord?"

"I - I - Yes, I cut the cord, all right!? I just - things were so much better with you around, I didn’t want you to leave! Okay!? Besides, all she does is yell at you anyway, so I figured you wouldn’t mind not going back." Puar blurted out.

Yamcha frowned hard at her, and Puar knew exactly how disappointed he was in her. Goku, however, just continued to look bewildered by this turn of events.

Chichi was flushing hard from embarrassment, now feeling silly over being angry, though Yamcha didn’t blame her in the least bit. From her perspective, Goku had really done something mean to her, and she had entirely been within her rights. As had Gohan, who probably had been watching his mother be angry and sad for weeks….. Yamcha didn’t blame them at all.

Yamcha put a hand on Goku’s shoulder, causing him to look up at Yamcha instead of at Puar.

"You catch up with your family, okay? I’m gonna take Puar outside."

He didn’t wait for Goku to respond as he grabbed Puar and walked back outside, going slower than before because now he wasn’t in a hurry and his leg was hurting like a bitch by this point. He really needed to rest it, but now wasn’t the time.

Goku belonged with Chichi. They were married, after all. So what if he was actually rather terrified of the idea of going back to living without seeing Goku’s face every morning and having those big strong arms wrapped around his waist when he was having a really bad day? Chichi had him first.


End file.
